SOURCE: Porges, Irwin. “‘The Raven’ and the Peak of Tragedy.” In Edgar Allan Poe, pp. 156-59. Philadelphia, Pa.: Chilton Books, 1963.

In the following excerpt, Porges offers a biographical context for the writing and publication of “The Raven.”

This was to be known as “the house where The Raven was written.” Since the days when he swam in the James River and tramped the nearby woods, he had always loved the countryside. Now, for a while at least, Edgar and Virginia and his aunt were to live in a farmhouse owned by Patrick Brennan. The farm occupied 216 acres adjacent to the Hudson, and high in the garret, where he and his young wife stayed, they could look down at the gleaming river and glimpse the green of the woods and meadows. Here, in his study, the inspiration that had been born when he first encountered poor Barnaby Rudge and...